“By virtue of being elected, he has made my life as a traveler much much easier”

Q. The inauguration is tomorrow. Do you have any advice for our soon-to-be president?

A. I would not presume to advise him on anything. By virtue of being elected, he has made my life as a traveler much much easier. I’ve felt the impact abroad already. I get congratulated by complete strangers walking up to me in Sri Lanka and Vietnam. It’s been a tough eight years to be a traveling American. I don’t think people hated Americans, but there was a look that people gave you. Just by virtue of being an American you were like some well-intentioned, but rabid golden retriever. A look of curiosity, disbelief and horror. And this was in England and Australia. I’m particularly proud and happy about our new president. There will be a tangible difference in the way Americans are treated abroad. It just feels better. Above and beyond all the policy.

Bourdain says a bunch of other stuff in his typical fashion– some of it smart, some of it not, some of it just kinda mean– but I think he’s probably right on target with this one.

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One Reply to ““By virtue of being elected, he has made my life as a traveler much much easier””

I know of numerous people in independent bands who often talk about how difficult it had become to tour outside of the U.S.A. Perhaps now, they, too, will be able to visit foreign countries more easily.

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This blog started in 2003. In the old days, I posted a lot more often, but most of those early posts were short links and things I'm more likely to post nowadays on Facebook and Twitter. I used to run a community blog site called EMUTalk.org;
here's a link to the archive for that site.